Dot.com shares may be facing problems but Reuters
reported recently that the morning after announcing a joint venture to
make solar panels, Belgian steel wire maker Bekaert SA saw
its shares bounce up by more than four percent. Reuters noted that this
made it one of the leading percentage gainers on the Brussels stock market.

Bekaert will invest $84 million in a 50:50 joint venture
with U.S. based Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) to manufacture thin film
solar power panels. They will spend $50 million on a new plant with an
annual capacity of 25 megawatts of solar panel output. They predict that
the new unit will generate sales of $125 to 150 million within four to
five years and will equal Bekaert's current annual steel sales of one
billion dollars by 2010.

The company expects that the new factory will reach
full capacity within 2 years, make a profit from year three and recover
the entire initial outlay in a further three to four years. Source: Reuters
News Service 4-5 April 2000

SOLAR Breeder

Solar and other renewables will be the source of energy
for a new solar manufacturing facility now open in San Francisco. Built
by PowerLight Corporation, the 18,000 sq foot facility will manufacture
the company's PowerGuard ® photovoltaic roofing tiles. Solar electric
output from a year's production of PowerGuard tiles will equal 15 megawatts.

On the roof of the factory is a 15 kilowatt array
of PowerGuard tiles which will supply a portion of the energy needed for
production. The remainder of the energy will come from GreenMountain.com's
Solar for the Future (sm) programme. California residential customers
using Solar for the Future will receive 100 percent of their power from
renewable sources, while part of their monthly payment will be set aside
to contribute to future solar projects.

PowerLight is the first commercial customer for GreenMountain
in the programme. Like any Solar for the Future customer, a portion of
the monthly electric bill paid by PowerLight to GreenMountain will turn
around and be used to build more solar generating capacity.

The European Photovoltaics Conference in Glasgow
attracted 1,500 PV experts from 70 countries. Conference chairman Hermann
Scheer noted that Germany aims to have 100,000 homes producing grid linked
solar power by 2010 - there were around 5,000 so far.

The contrast to the host country, the UK, was stark.
Here theres a plan for PV on just 100 houses. Jenniy Gregory of
the British Photo Voltaic Society noted that "there are only a
handful of British houses at the moment," and feared that Britain
would be left behind by other countries in Europe, despite being at the
forefront of solar technology. In Germany, the government saw its funding
for PV as a way to pump prime the market and help to get prices down,
but in the UK was still seen as a long term option

DTI Energy Minister Helen Liddell was clearly therefore
facing a less than sympathetic audience when she outlined the governments
view that "we need liberalised, competitive markets that reflect
true costs and give consumers real choice. Only then can we hope to see
increasing demand and decreasing costs become reality and the possibility
of a sustainable future". She went on "Here in the UK
we have taken the lead in market liberalisation. I do not believe that
large scale subsidy is the answer, though clearly subsidy has a role to
play. In fact there has been a very substantial increase in our R&D
expenditure, £5 million of which has been allocated to PV over the next
three years."

On a more positive note she added "There is
no doubt that in the long run PV will play a major role in our electricity
supply systems. I intend to play a positive role in promoting PV, particularly
to the movers and shakers in the construction industry."